Blood and Feathers (30 page)

“What, sit this one out? And miss all the fun? Not bloody likely!” There were shouts of agreement and, suddenly, all the angels were cheering. The sound echoed off the Gate and filled the cavern like a cathedral.

Mallory kept his back to them, and raised his eyebrows pointedly at Vin. “Told you.”

“Bit of a gamble, wasn’t it?”

“Call it an exercise in free will.” He stared up at the Gate again, taking another long gulp from his hipflask, which, if anything, had got even colder, turning the contents slow and syrupy. “Now we’ve just got to get through the Gate.”

“About that... how exactly are you going to bring it down?”

“I’m not,” Mallory said, pocketing his flask. “You are.” And without another word, he walked past Vin and was lost in the crowd.

Inside her waterfall, Charon sneered, and vanished.

“L
OOK AT IT
! A bullet’ll never get through that. They’re not stupid.”

“We’re talking about the Fallen. Of
course
they’re stupid,” Brieus peered into the eye-sockets of a skull. “This guy must’ve been a looker, just get a load of those cheekbones.”

“That’s a woman’s skull, Brieus.”

“Even better. Hellooo.”

“Do you think you might like to... I don’t know,
focus
, perhaps?” Mallory said.

Brieus rolled his eyes and walked back to the others. “Says mister ‘I-can’t-ask-you-to-come-with-me.’ Nice touch, by the way. Couldn’t have done a better job myself.”

“You’re right. You couldn’t.”

Mallory slotted a new magazine into his Colt and aimed it at the middle of the Gate. Casually, he squeezed the trigger... over and over and over again until the entrance to hell rang with gunfire, and his gun finally made an empty clicking sound. “Go check if you want: it won’t even have nicked the paintwork. Like I said, not stupid.”

“That’s not possible,” said Vin, and he hurried over to the Gate. Mallory and Brieus watched him as he hesitated, then ran his hands over the bones. When he turned back to face them, he looked disappointed, and a little sick. “First of all, that thing is grim. Just grim. I know they’re twisted and everything, but...”

“We get it. Move on.”

“Not a scratch. How’s that even work?”

“I told you: they’re not stupid. They built it to keep us out, remember.”

“Out of bones.
Bones
.”

“Yes, Vin. Out of bones.”

“Lots of them.”

“Which should prove that they’re determined, if nothing else.” Mallory looked thoughtful. “And it’s the bones that are doing it.”

“How so?” Brieus asked, slapping Vin – whose face had turned an interesting shade of greenish grey – on the back.

Mallory shrugged, tucking his gun back under his jacket. “No idea. But it has to be the bones. Just look at it. They could have built it out of ice, out of rock... anything. They don’t use it to go in and out. It has no
purpose
other than to stand between us and the Fallen. If they’ve used bones, they’ve used them for a reason.”

“Maybe it’s just to give the willies to the more... sensitive among us.” Brieus laughed, and Vin pulled a face. He followed it with an obscene gesture, which both Mallory and Brieus chose to ignore.

“If you ask me, you’re spending too long on the wrong question. Who cares why it’s made of bone? Your gun doesn’t even dent it, fine. So what will?”

“It’s not the wrong question, Brieus. You’re just not looking at it the right way. It’s not a case of asking what will break the bone. It’s a case of asking what happens if it isn’t built of bone any longer?”

Brieus stared back at Mallory, then took a slow step back.

“At the moment, what I’m really wondering is whether all that drink hasn’t finally gone to your head. You can’t
change
it, Mallory. It is what it is. Unless you’ve got some way to turn it to marshmallow and have us all waltz right through. Which would be sticky, to say the least.”

“It doesn’t matter what it is, though, does it? It only matters what it
isn’t
.”

“Which is still completely irrelevant, because you...” Brieus tailed off as he followed Mallory’s gaze. He was looking at Vin, now sitting on his heels but looking a little less ill. “Oh.
Ohh
.”

“Now do you see?”

“That’s not possible.”

“Says who?”

“It’ll never work.”

“And if it doesn’t, then you have my full permission to say ‘I told you so.’ But I don’t think you’ll get the chance.” He crouched down next to Vin. “What do you say?”

Vin looked back over his shoulder at the Gate. “How far up do you think it goes?”

“I can take a look, if you want...”

“Nah. It’s fine.” He stood up and stretched, cricking his neck first one way then another and opening his wings. “I’ll go.” He shuddered theatrically, and with a flap of his wings he was gone, soaring up above them.

Brieus was watching Mallory carefully. “It could kill him.”

“It could. It won’t.”

“Even so...”

“Vhnori is perfectly capable of making his own choices, Brieus.”

“But it’s your judgement he’s trusting. Which is more than some of us would in his place.”

“Do you have a problem, Brieus? Because if you do, I’m happy to settle it right here. Now.”

Mallory’s voice was cold as he stripped off his jacket and dropped it by his feet, rolling up his sleeves.

Brieus jumped back to a spot he thought was out of reach. “Look, Mallory, I’m on your side, alright? I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. None of us would. All I’m saying is that you’d better be sure, because if this is what it boils down to, and it goes wrong...” He left the sentence hanging in mid-air. They both knew what that would mean.

Mallory scooped up his jacket and slipped it back over his shoulders, hiding a shiver. “If this goes wrong, taking care of Vhnori will be the least of my problems.”

V
IN LANDED WITH
a thump, several minutes later. He had gone as high as he dared and got precisely nowhere. The top of the Gate was still far out of sight by the time his wings gave out. It wasn’t often that he missed his old wings, but this was one of those times. Of course, what they could really have done with was a Descended – even Gwyn, if absolutely necessary – but they were keeping themselves predictably clear of the whole business. Once the Gate was down, it would be another story. Then, he wondered whether even the Archangels would make an appearance... once it was done, and ready for the taking. He sighed. Same old story. Still, if this didn’t count towards getting back into their good graces, he didn’t know what would. And besides, he was sure he’d seen Saritiel somewhere in the crowd earlier.

“Well?” said Mallory, not looking up from his notebook.

Vin rolled his wings back behind his shoulders. “Well, what? There’s not much to say. I went, I looked, I saw pretty much fuck-all of any use.”

“Think you can do it?”

“Who knows? It’s pretty big...”

“I never had you down for understatement.”

“Me all over. Understated. Cool. Collected.” He made a sliding motion with his hand, and managed to hit Saritiel in the shoulder, not realising she was walking up behind him. “Ouch.”

“Shit. Sorry. I... err, didn’t see you.”

“Clearly.” Saritiel narrowed her eyes at him, then turned to Mallory. “I came to see if there’s anything I can do.”

Mallory made a strangled squeaking sound in response, his whole body shaking with suppressed laughter as Vin blushed furiously.

Sari sighed. “I see I’ve caught you boys at a bad time. I’ll come back later.” She spun on her heel and stalked off, leaving Vin waving forlornly after her.

Mallory roared with laughter. “Understated. Cool. Collected.
Absolutely
.”

“Piss off, Mallory.” By this point even Vin was smiling. “You’re not helping.”

“Sorry. It’s just...” His face crumpled into a laugh again. “It’s really not your day, is it?”

“No. It’s not...” Vin suddenly turned and looked back over his shoulder at the Bone-Built Gate. “You know what? I reckon I
can
help you out with that. But I’m going to need something.”

“What’s that?”

“A serious amount of luck. Give me an hour, and I’ll meet you back here.”

Mallory watched him go, then turned his attention back to the Gate, running a hand over the bones that had been lashed together to build it. It didn’t make him feel any better than it did Vin, but there was something admirable about the sheer bloody-minded effort that had gone into it. Say what you want about the Fallen, but they never did things by halves. Something moved at the corner of his vision, drawing his eyes to the ice. Charon was back, staring out at him in open hostility, and he blew her a kiss before raising his fingers to draw a pattern in the air, which he then flicked in her direction. She opened her mouth in a frozen hiss and retreated into the cascade of ice, but not before he saw the figure behind her who ducked aside as she sank deeper, obviously just as keen to keep out of her way as he was to avoid being seen by the angels. Looking out was a man with cropped hair and dark-ringed eyes, and Mallory’s blood pounded in his ears.

“Rimmon.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

If You Can’t See the Woods for the Trees,

What You Really Need is a Chainsaw

“I
THINK WE
should’ve turned left by that fruit tree.”

“You
think?
”

“Hey. Don’t get snitty with me, I’m just following you!”

“Now why in the world would you do that?”

“Err... because you’re supposed to know where you’re going, maybe?” Alice poked Abbadona’s shoulder, hard enough to make him flinch.

He gave her a dirty look. “Only on the top levels, which is where I agreed to be your guide, princess. Not down here. No way. This is the Twelve’s patch. This is where the
crazy
people come.”

Alice was reluctant to admit it, but there was definitely something in what he was saying. Since they had crossed the river, things had been both easier and harder. Easier in that all those nagging doubts had evaporated and she felt clear, focused. Sober. She still didn’t know exactly what she was looking for in hell – something of Xaphan’s, yes, but
what
? – but Xaphan was one of the Twelve, and that meant she was on the right track. This side of the river frightened Abbadona too, and he was now putting more of his energy into getting out alive than he was into being unpleasant. This could only be a good thing. In fact, it had been a while since she had imagined setting him on fire. Perhaps she was just getting used to him again.

The landscape was changing around them as they walked, or not so much
walked
as stumbled blindly, occasionally bickering about the direction they should be going. Alice was exhausted – bone-tired and soul-cold – but still she kept going. Her companion didn’t look like he was doing much better. So from that point of view, it was getting harder.
Much
harder.

The bare rock of the upper levels of hell had given way to a forest, albeit the most unsettling one Alice had ever seen. There were still no real shadows; just the same grey-blue light, making the trees appear somehow false, like the painted backdrop of a stage. She had imagined that if she touched one, it would be smooth and flat. Despite this conviction, she couldn’t quite bring herself to actually reach out and lay her hand on one of the trunks. They were awful-looking things with knotted branches twisted quite out of shape, the roots ripping back out of the ground and threatening to catch hold of her feet as she passed. The leaves, too – such as they had – were black and frost-burned, the edges curled in on themselves, and the whole thing was nicely set off by the vicious thorns that jutted out of the wood at all angles. It was a place she was keen to leave as soon as possible, and she deeply regretted not having taken the other path (or what there was of one) earlier. But that had been before the forest.